At Home In Your Body Series

If you view your body as good, as set apart for God, you will look after it with more than a passing interest. In fact, if you abuse your body and neglect it, you will feel terrible about yourself. God loves you in your body. It’s precious to Him as part of who you are. Next,

Stop Rejecting Body Parts. Everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected.

We might think, "My ears, my arms, and my lips are OK, but I hate my nose, and my eyebrows."

I paged through some women’s magazines the other day. I feel sorry for some of you women -- not because of how you look but because of how you’re supposed to look! Ads and articles abounded about plastic surgery, lash extensions, hair coloring, and makeup. Mascara can give you up to sixteen times bigger lashes. I would think you’d have to do lash exercises just to hold those babies open!

One ad for shiny skin salve said, "Control what you can." The implication is, "The rest of you ain’t much to behold, so you better work with what you got."

But it’s not just women. Fathers used to say, "That’ll put some hair on your chest," and their sons were happy. These days their sons will run the other direction because men are lasering hair from all sorts of places. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but the heavy emphasis on looks is out of whack.

What looks good is usually a cultural matter, and what’s happened in our culture is easily explainable. They want your money. If they can make you feel unhappy, they will have your money. One study said women are bombarded with an average of 2000 ads on beauty products a week.

Not liking your face or your skin or your limbs will not change them. Learn to accept what God accepts. Reject what God rejects. You’ll be much happier. Next, spiritual thinking means I will

Thank God for My Body. Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. The psalmist also declared, "I praise you because I’m so well made..."

Can you do that? Can you say, "God, thankyou for making me so superbly. Thankyou for making me beautiful and wondrous." It might sound proud if you’re comparing yourself to others, but if you’re giving God the credit for His work, it’s pure worship.

It’s possible, that we can become so discontent trying to fix and shape our bodies that we’ve lost the thankful wonder of them. Look at your hand. Do you appreciate how amazing it is? A signal from your brain will move a finger in a split second. Nerve endings let you know when something comes into contact and tells you whether it’s rough or smooth, warm or cold, wet or dry.

Even those parts you don’t like much, what’s wrong? Don’t they work at all? Or are you judging on the basis of appearance. Whose standards are you using? I’ve never liked my nobby knees. Compared to others, they look weird when bent. When I was a teenager wearing shorts, I would avoid bending my legs in front of girls, because everyone knows that no girl would like a guy with ugly knees. That made it very hard to sit down.

Today, I’m thanking God for my knees. They work fine. I don’t have to kneel on concrete very often. Maybe it’s everyone else’s knees that are the wrong shape!